‘PH govt should be given more time to fulfill 10-in-100-days pledge’
SIBU: Lawyer Robert Lau Hui Yew believes the people of Sarawak and Sabah are willing to give the Pakatan Harapan ( PH) government time to fulfill the promises made in its election manifesto.
In his capacity as a speaker at the International Malaysia Law Conference 2018 in Kuala Lumpur on Aug 14, he said 100 days is definitely not enough time for PH to achieve its ‘10 promises in 100 days’ pledge, which ends today.
“I am sure the people of Sarawak and Sabah are willing to give the new government more time to fulfill the promises, particularly those with regards to the rights of the two states under the Malaysia Agreement 1963,” he said when discussing the topic ‘The 100 Days: Scorecard on GE14 Promises’.
He lamented that out of the 10 promises to be fulfilled in the 100 days, only one directly concerns Sarawak and Sabah – the settingup of a special cabinet committee to properly enforce MA63.
Lau said despite remarks by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department ( Law) Datuk Liew Vui Keong a month ago that a committee on the matter would be set up, there has been no further information on it since.
“We do not know their scope of work and time line,” he said.
He said the restoration of rights to Sarawak and Sabah touched on institutional reforms, and reminded that Malaysia was formed with Sarawak, Sabah and Malaya as equal partners.
“Without Sabah and Sarawak, there would be no Malaysia. Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo were integrated with the Federation of Malaya. MA1963 is an international agreement registered with the United Nations under Resolution 1541 Principle VI(c), which provides for integration of new territories into an existing country.
“After 55 years of a single-party rule, the federal constitution has been amended more than 60 times and affected more than 600 articles and sub-articles. It is almost unrecognisable compared to the original 1963 constitution laid out in MA63.”
He believes that while the new government is in a quest to clean up the excesses and abuses of power through institutional reforms, it should bear in mind and be guided by MA63.
Meanwhile, political observer Dato Wan Zain Syed Mohdzar concurred that the people must give the new government a little more time to correct the “damaged system of the previous government”.
“We see changes happening in the system where monopolising ministries have now been broken into several ministries to ensure that corruption does not continue to proliferate.
“For me, this is very important to be dealt with because the corruption phenomenon is the one that paralyses the country’s economic strength,” he told The Borneo Post in Miri yesterday.
He mentioned the abolition of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and replacing it with the Sales and Services Tax (SST), as well as the launching of a retirement savings plan for housewives, single mothers and widows through the Employees Provident Fund (EPF), as among the notable achievements of the new government.
Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad admitted in June that the government needed more than 100 days to fulfill the promises contained in the PH manifesto, but assured that all pledges would eventually be fulfilled.